a few other recent pictures for the grandparents

Here is Dane's little friend Indie. It's a Christmas miracle that I got them both smiling at the same time! Notice them having fun with the tupperwares in the kitchen. I am totally happy for them to pull those down and play with them all they want.

You will notice a theme in these pictures: Dane getting into things. All of the rest of these are from my phone, and I usually take them to send to Tommy to show him what mischief Dane is getting up to while he's gone. He's really trying to get into all the cupboards, but we put rubber bands on the ones that have handles next to each other to keep them closed.

 The kitchen cupboards are the BEST!

We got this little car from some friends for free, and Dane just finally started appreciating it. He loves getting pushed around on it--he just giggles and grins the whole time.

Look at him, chewing on that infant snot-sucker. Isn't that just so hygienic and cute. But I love his shirt--it says "Vroom, vroom, off to Grandpa's!"

Any time we go down the stairs in our apartment, Dane insists on crawling back up them. He would just crawl up and up and up all day long if I'd let him. Unfortunately, there's no going down for him yet, so I can't.

 

Parenting with a capital P

Check out his big boy haircut! It makes me sad, still. I miss his long hair.

I think we're starting to get to the point where we're having to do actual PARENTING. It's really weird to think about it that way. Most of the stuff we've had to do so far as parents has been just keeping this baby alive and making sure he's getting enough food and sleep. That's not to say it hasn't been stressful at times, or that we haven't worried that we're doing things wrong--is he getting enough fluids? Is he constipated? Is he sick? All of those things run through my mind on a regular basis. But now, on top of all of those physical concerns, it's becoming clear that Dane is getting to the point where he understands things and is really learning things. So we're having to start thinking about discipline (okay, not seriously, but kind of) and teaching and all sorts of real Parenting things, where what you say and do matters more than just if they get enough food.

I mean, look at this boy:

He's playing a JOKE here! He's biting on the spoon and holding it in his mouth and laughing about it because he knows he's being silly. How does he know how to do these things? Every time he does something new I am always amazed and wonder when and how he figured it out. I love that he's learning how to be silly though. When he's really happy (usually in the evening after dinner when Tommy and I are both home and playing with him) he'll sit down and turn his head back and forth really fast with this big grin on his face and then he'll stop and wait for us to laugh at him. 

He's also starting to be naughty. I'm watching another baby who's around the same age as him one and a half days a week, and he absolutely does NOT like having her around. He gets so possessive and upset whenever he knows she's here because I hold her too. How dare she encroach on his space? Last week, I was holding both of them on my lap reading them a book, and he looks up at me, and then reaches over and grabs her arm and squeezes it with his little talons, obviously trying to hurt her arm. I kept pulling his arm off and saying "No," but he kept reaching over and doing it over and over again! I mean, how naughty is that? I kept wanting to laugh, but I'm pretty sure that's not the best response if you want him to stop doing something.

He also bites me ALL the time. He sometimes will bite Tommy, but he never bites anyone else, and he bites me several times a day. It's this total mommy-love-affection thing, where he goes into kiss me and ends up biting my shoulder or cheek or leg, but it obviously hurts and I try to tell him every time that it's not okay. He can be super, super whiny when I'm doing anything other than sitting on the floor playing with him--it's definitely gotten worse since I started watching our other friend.

But anyways, he definitely has ideas and opinions of his own now. We are all trying to navigate him growing up like this. He is definitely our baby still, but I've been looking at pictures from when he was first born the last few days while working on our photobook for 2012 and I cannot believe he was ever so small.

My only real question is, how has it happened so fast? 

a couple of things

^^this is the only person dane wants to wake up to in the morning^^ 

-i know i've said this already, but dane seriously, seriously is in love with his daddy right now. he will hardly let me do anything with him. if tommy is home, i can't read to dane, or feed him, or hold him, but tommy can. we waited outside for tommy this afternoon, and when he was maybe 100 meters away still, dane saw him and started panting and kicking and couldn't WAIT for tommy to get here to pick him up. it really is super cute how happy tommy makes him. but tonight after tommy was finished reading him his bedtime stories, i walked in and dane whimpered for me and raised up his arms for me to pick him up--so i guess there still is some hope!

-dane's been making some cute sounds lately. he'll say "woooowwww," in a whisper-y, awestruck voice every once in a while. it's even cuter because he doesn't say it to mean anything and doesn't know what it means. also, he'll say "raaaawrrr" in a totally growly voice--again, not to be intimidating or anything. super funny.

-sometimes when we put him down, he'll take off crawling and laughing and just practically begging for you to chase him. he's all about getting chased right now. and then he's laughing so hard that he topples over as he crawls and falls over.

-super random: we got home from our big trip and were shocked to find that our apartment complex had changed names while we were gone. it went from the very sensibly named Century Creek Apartments to "Encore at the Park," which embarrasses me and makes me not want to live here. also, the sign says "Formally known as Century Creek." so many things wrong with this change, i don't even know what to do.

seeing elder murphy + quebec city

THIS was the real reason Dane and I tagged along on our trip to Montreal:

I probably wouldn't have wanted to make all the effort to get there (getting Dane a passport, flying with Dane AGAIN just three days after getting back from our other month-long trip, sightseeing all week by myself while Tommy was at the conference), except that my cute oldest little brother is there on his mission. And Dane was born three months after he left on his mission, so they'd never met each other--and we were never going to get such a perfect chance to see him again. So we bought our tickets, called his mission president to ask permission to take him out to lunch, and rented a car to drive the 1.5 hours out to Sherbrooke where he is currently serving. All so that we could get a picture like this:

 We took him and his companion out to lunch at Chez Charlie (one classy establishment, obviously) and had a really awesome time.

Let me tell you, Austin is a baby whisperer. He loves babies. So of course he really loved Dane.

And Dane finally warmed up to him, after bursting into sad, sad crocodile tears when first getting a hug from Austin.

So sad that this picture is so blurry! 

Although it was so short seeing Austin, it was totally worth it. We got to learn more about their mission and what they do every day, and it was so fun hearing it in his own words instead of just in his emails. We told him all about Dallin leaving and our trip with the fam. So good to have this uncle-nephew bonding time (although I wish I'd gotten in another picture with Austin instead of just getting ones with Dane!). We love you Austin! We miss both of the Elder Murphys who are out in the world now.

Since we'd already rented a car for the whole day, we took the afternoon and drove up to Quebec City, two hours north. It's a very historical, stone-walled city with lots of amazing, old buildings and scenery.

This building is the most famous hotel in the city, and possibly in the world (according to the guidebook--who knows what that even means). It's called the Hotel Chateau Frontenac and it's over 150 years old--and gorgeous!

How cute is this--we ate dinner at this restaurant and they sat us at this bar right looking out the window. Dane was so cute.

This picture cracks me up--Dane just sat there making this face on Tommy's shoulders for maybe 30 seconds. I don't know what he was thinking about but he sure looks bemused.

The highlight of the night--we found out that Cirque du Soleil, which originated just outside of Quebec, does free shows every night in the summer at an outdoor theater right near the water. So we made Dane stay up wayyy too late past his bedtime and waited around for an extra hour or so to watch the show. Although we didn't get to stay the whole time (because of Dane's bedtime), we got to see enough to make it feel like we saw the whole show. It was so cool.

And then we flew out back to the good old US of A the next day. And we are SO GLAD TO BE HOME! Ah! We are back to regular life and it feels soooo good.

montreal

Since we were ONLY gone for four and a half weeks in Utah and California and Idaho and Montana and Wyoming (ha!), we thought we'd go on another trip three days after we got back. This time we headed up to Montreal for a conference that Tommy presented his research at. This is the big, giant statistics conference that happens once a year, and when Tommy found out last year that this one was going to be in Montreal, we immediately decided that me and baby Leininger (who wasn't born yet) would have to come along. (The major reason we wanted to come was because my brother Austin is there on his mission--but pictures from seeing him are coming in another blog post. There are just too many pictures!)

Although this trip was on the tail end of all of our travels and we were therefore all traveled out, we had a lot of fun. Montreal is a beautiful city, and we stayed in a good hotel that was in a good location so I walked everywhere and did lots of sightseeing and came back to the hotel for Dane to nap while Tommy spent all day at his conference, mostly having job interviews (very exciting!). It wasn't too different from what Dane and I do all day at home, but I had nothing to do during his naps other than read quietly on the bed, which was really nice and relaxing, and then we did lots of fun stuff when he was awake.

We had poutine, the Montreal favorite dish (French fries with cheese curds and gravy on them--sounds gross but soooo delicious). Check out Dane's hungry face.

Tommy's conference was at the downtown convention center (the Palais des Congres--so fancy sounding) which was a super cool modern-looking building. The next few pictures are all of the convention center.

Once I saw these windows, I knew just what picture I wanted to take inside--Dane playing with the colored windows!

So cute.

We came and visited Tommy to have lunch during a break from his many interviews!

We saw the Notre Dame Cathedral of Montreal--which looks basically just like the one in Paris (from the outside at least--we didn't go inside because it cost money, haha). 

Everyone told me I had to try the Montreal bagels--so Dane and I took a bus ride to the two most famous bagel shops (and Dane loved them, obviously).

Oh, super important--Dane wore shoes for the first time there and it was soooooo cute. Also, he stands up all over the place now. He loved the crib in the hotel room because it had bars that were perfect for him to grab onto.

Also, he became obsessed with graham crackers while we were there. It was the best way to keep him from screaming all the way home in the stroller.

Pretty sure Dane's favorite part of the trip was the huge bed in the hotel room, where he would flop around and throw himself on the pillows and giggle. It was hilarious.

One day we took a big old hike up Mont Royal, which is basically the Central Park of Montreal, and had a picnic at the top near this beautiful lake. It was so nice.

Very concerned.

Whenever we put Dane in the swing, this is what he does. Grips as tight as he can and looks very nervous the whole time.

We also went to a few museums, had a lot of picnics and ate at fun restaurants, and saw a lot of cool downtown areas. I really liked Montreal as a city. Even though it was a lot of work making it there and traveling with a baby, it was definitely worth it and definitely a lot of fun once we were there.